1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method of treating long life name; which is processed, in the occasion when long file name not supported in the file system is used in an application program.
2. Description of the Related Art
In file managing system of Operating System for personal computer, the file name had been made up of 8+3 letter set, for reasons of history of Operating System. That is, in such system, a file name is represented with 8 letters of alphabet or number, a period, and 3 letters of alphabet or number. An example of this is “filename.ext”. This kind of file name representing formula is an international standard of ISO 9660 level 1.
By the way, as time has past, new types of Operating Systems are developed by each manufacturer. And, they have grown up in each family of operating system. In this growing process, file names obey 8+3 letter set formula of international standard, in either of these Operating Systems. But, in Operating Systems of some manufacturers, file names are not limited to 8+3 letter set. And, any formula of file names can be used by programmers, from the beginning of the OS development. A file name of this kind is called a long file name. On the other hand, a file name of 8+3 letter set representing formula is called “a short file name”, in this application.
On the contrary, in Operating Systems of some other manufacturers, long file names cannot be used at the beginning. That is, only, short file names are supported in systems, in the early time of OS. And, long file names are supported only in the recently developed OS.
Therefore, recently, long file names become to be able to be used in most of operating systems. On the other hand, there can be some personal computers installing some Operating System, which is made in the earliest time. In that occasion, short file names can only be used. But, short file names have already become names of the past, in business world. And, users make application programs, putting aside file names formula. That is, long file names described in this specification, is used. So, in the occasion mentioned above, it becomes necessary to transform long file names into short file names. Therefore, the conventional transforming method will be described.
In the conventional method, long file names are transformed into short file names of 8+3 letter set, according to the regulations hereafter described.    1. An extension character etc. is transformed into underscore “_”.    2. The first three letters after period comprise an extension.    3. Spaces are ignored.    4. The first six letters are remained. And, they are transformed into capital letters.    5. The rest two letters are a combination of a tilda “˜” and a number. The first combination is “˜1”. If there are two file names which first six letters are same, the second file name is attached with “˜2”. If there are ten file names which first six letters are same, the tenth file name is attached with “˜10”. And, the letter combination becomes that of the first five letters and this attachment.
However, there was the next problem in conventional technique mentioned above.
As mentioned above, when a long file name is newly used in an application program by a programmer, there can be an occasion when already used is a long file name which first six letters are same as those of the newly-used file name. In this occasion, as mentioned above, they are discriminated by attaching “˜1” and “˜2”.
Therefore, if a new long file name is detected in the occasion when an application program is compiled, it is necessary to search all the long file name which are registered in the file managing system, as to judge whether the first six letters are same or not. Otherwise, it cannot be transformed into a short file name. Such searching process must be performed each time when a new long file name is detected.
Therefore, much time is needed to compile an application program. And, there was a problem that developing a program cannot be performed smoothly.